FERDINAND CHRISTIAN BAUR: JUDAISM AS AN HISTORICAL ANTIPODE OF CHRISTIANITY

Although the scope and date of Ferdinand Christian Baur’s more direct involvement with Hegelian ideas is disputed, Baur undoubtedly operated with an idealistic dialectical model of history. He did this in a similar vein to Hegel, regardless of whether it was initially the result of direct inspiration from Schelling or from Hegel himself.1 In any case, with Baur as the founder of what is known as the (New) Tübingen school,2 idealistic dialectical history in Baur’s specifi c conception became the vogue in the discussion of early Christian history, conditioning much of it for the rest of the century. Hence—and because the structures of his thought remain in New Testament research tradition—Baur stands as one of the founding fathers of New Testament exegesis.3 The study of

1 The dependence on Hegel is too evident to be disputed; according to Baur’s own confession from 1833, he was a Hegelian, W. Geiger, Spekulation und Kritik. Die Geschichtstheologie Ferdinand Christian Baurs, vol. XXVIII, Forschungen zur Geschichte und Lehre des Protestantismus (München: Chr. Kaiser-Verlag, 1962), 39. On Baur and the Tübingen school, see Horton Harris, The Tübingen School (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1975), and on Baur and Hegel, Peter C. Hodgson, The Formation of Historical Theology. A Study of Ferdinand Christian Baur, ed. Jaroslav Pelikan, Makers of Modern Theology (New York: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1966), 1–4, 265, with a nuanced view of Baur’s dependence on Hegel. Carl E. Hester, “Baurs Anfänge in Blaubeuren”, in Historisch-kritische Geschichtsbetrachtung. Ferdinand Christian Baur und seine Schüler. 8. Blauberger Symposion, ed. Ulrich Köpf (Sigmaringen: Jan Thorbecke Verlag, 1994), passim, also notes the infl uence from Schelling. 2 This concept is by no means unambiguous, see Ulrich Köpf, “Die theologischen Tübingen Schulen”, in Historisch-kritische Geschichtsbetrachtung. Ferdinand Christian Baur und seine Schüler. 8. Blauberger Symposion, ed. Ulrich Köpf (Sigmaringen: Jan Thorbecke Verlag, 1994). The Tübingen school here is to be distinguished from the old Tübingen school, as well as from the Catholic one, all with very different views, Köpf, 15. Baur himself was trained in the old Tübingen school. 3 Baur truly is an exegete, although the scope of his writings may primarily be designated as church history. His infl uence on exegesis has been immense, Käsemann in Ferdinand Christian Baur, Auserwählte Werke in Einzelausgaben, vol. I–V (Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt: Friedrich Frommann Verlag (Günther Holzboog), 1963–1975 (1831–)), I:8. The basic material used for the analysis of Baur is the texts published in Baur, Ferdi- nand Christian, ed. Klaus Scholder, I–V, Baur, Auserwählte Werke in Einzelausgaben, but also Ferdinand Christian Baur, Paulus, der Apostel Jesu Christi. Sein Leben und Wirken, seine Briefe und seine Lehre. Ein Beitrag zu einer kritischen Geschichte des Urchristenthums, 2., nach dem Tode des Verfassers besorgt von Eduard Zeller ed., vol. 1 (Leipzig: Fues’s Verlag (L. W. 98 part i. enlightenment exegesis and the jews

Morgan, Semler, Herder, Schleiermacher and de Wette indicates that Baur may not have produced the original sketches of Jews and Judaism in early Christianity.4 It is well known that Schleiermacher’s Glaubenslehre led to a breakthrough in Baur’s thinking—“without Schleiermacher, Baur’s entire research is unthinkable”.5 However, Baur combined this and other infl uences into a new synthesis, through his extensive writing but also through his infl uence on students and followers, constructing a building in which generations of scholars would dwell.

A Dialectical Movement from Paganism and Judaism to Early Christianity

Baur’s is a history of great sweeps, and since he is fi rst and foremost an historian, the place of Christianity in world history is of interest to him. Throughout his production runs a coherent narrative about the dialectical movement from two religious worlds on the verge of dissolution, and how this is followed by a new synthesis, Christianity. Baur notes that the rise of Christianity and the apex of the Roman Empire coincide in time: It is a genuinely world-historical viewpoint that at the same time as the Roman Empire united all the peoples of that time into a universal mon- archy, the religion, too, began its course through the world, dissolving (aufhob) all religious particularism into universalism.6 This describes a moment in time when the national, the particular and the individual unite into two great bodies, the Roman Empire

Riesland), 1866). On Baur, see e.g. Roy A. Harrisville and Walter Sundberg, The Bible in Modern Culture. Theology and Historical-Critical Method from Spinoza to Käsemann (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1995), 111–130, Klaus Scholder, “Baur, Fer- dinand Christian (1792–1860)”, in Theologische Realenzyklopädie (1980). Modern scholars who build expressly on Baur’s description of New Testament history include Goulder, see Michael D. Goulder, Paul and the competing mission in Corinth, ed. S. E. Porter, Library of Pauline Studies (Peabody, Massachusetts: Hendrickson Publishers, 2001), 7–8. 4 Baur himself quotes J. E. C. Schmidt for the basic analysis of two competing parties in Corinth, Baur, Auserwählte Werke in Einzelausgaben I:16, and both Semler and F. von Schelling infl uenced Baur, Goulder, Paul and the competing mission in Corinth, 1. 5 Peter Friedrich, Ferdinand Christian Baur als Symboliker, vol. 12, Studien zur Theolo- gie und Geistesgeschichte des Neunzehnten Jahrhunderts (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1975), 37–38, quotation from an unpublished dissertation by Eberhard Hermann Pältz, “F. Chr. Baurs Verhältnis zu Schleiermacher” (Diss. Jena), 1955. 6 Baur, Auserwählte Werke in Einzelausgaben III: 2. For Baur on particularism and universalism, see Heschel, Abraham Geiger and the Jewish Jesu, 113.